


The Chosen Mother

by officialzeloswilder



Category: Tales of Symphonia
Genre: Arranged Marriage, F/M, Prequel, Tragic Romance, Unrequited Love, laughing because half of these characters aren't named
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-08-16
Updated: 2015-08-16
Packaged: 2018-04-15 00:08:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,284
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4585431
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/officialzeloswilder/pseuds/officialzeloswilder
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"My mother probably loved somebody else. But because of the oracle from Cruxis, she had to marry the chosen at the time--my father."</p>
<p>A story dedicated to shedding some light on the complications of a forced marriage between a young girl who only wanted to marry her prince and a young man burdened with the guilt of his lineage. It's the tale of unrequited love in two hearts, about the pieces not always fitting together when they're broken, and ultimately how a little boy was brought into the world despite it all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Chosen Mother

                Mylene knew she was to marry into the chosen lineage since her infancy. Ordained by the church, it had been made clear to her mother that she would have a future secure in status and wealth, for she was worthy of marrying The Chosen and giving him an heir. As a young girl, she dreamed of him like he was a prince, but then she met other boys and realized love didn’t fasten itself to status or fantasy in such ways. She fell for crooked smiles on stable boys faces, swooned at the little side chuckles uttered by sheepish shoe cobblers, until her heart leapt from her chest at the sight of her love—a quiet dark-eyed boy who had rough hands from years of knighthood. She knew his hands were rough because he’d given her a rose the second night they met, his palm brushing against her bare skin when the thorn lightly pricked her. He said sorry a hundred times, kissed the blood away and chased it up her arm and into her cheeks. Mylene turned her head and then she excused herself so she could run back home, throw herself into bed, and cry; because her dream prince was no longer the name spoken under her father’s breath while thinking of future financial prospects. Her prince now left her little notes written on scraps of paper he could find in his swordsman’s lifestyle, now smiled at her when they crossed paths at parties, now whispered nothings in her ears if they could ever find moments alone together.

            “I would have you forever if I thought it long enough,” he purred into her ear. “But, because I know not how to bottle eternity, the honor will have to be in loving you long enough to feel you wrinkle in my hands.”

            Father caught them standing just a little too close while side-by-side in the hallway and then she never heard from her prince again. When Mylene visited his quarters, they’d been emptied. One day she spotted his name on a memorial stone, many years later. She’d have left a rose if not for the tugging boy at her feet that drew her away.

            Five days after his disappearance, her family moved to Meltokio. Three weeks after moving, she attended the royal ball and met her fiancé for the first time. The Chosen. She was 16. He was 20.

            At the edge of the dance, he stood alone with his hands tucked behind his back. His hair a flame like an afire heart, swept back from his eyes so that it fell in small waves around his head with ends dancing along the edges of his high collar. He was not her prince anymore, not the hero she had dreamed of as a young girl, didn’t have those sweet brown eyes or that little crook in his nose like her true love did, Mylene approached him anyway. She had loved many before, could love many after, as she had a large heart to give out to those around her.

            He was angelic, a figure who inspired poetry many times before among the more saccharine hearted women in the royal court, and he twitched when she neared, an animalistic sort of reaction. But the chosen contained himself so his discomfort only showed in the way his head turned away from her, eyes lowered to the floor. Mylene curtsied, then held her hand out for him to take. He took it so shortly as to only let it bob in his grasp once, enough to show he’d greeted her and nothing else. When he spoke, it was a deep murmur that her ears struggled to hold in midst of the music around them and it tickled in her chest like hearing a beast’s growl. She straightened instinctively.

            “Pardon?” Mylene forced herself to ask.

            “I see we have finally been placed in our trap settings,” he repeated, no louder than before to accommodate her.

            “Our trap settings?”

            “Bait set out to catch a prize.” He turned away to look along the dancing parties.

            “You think me a prize?” Mylene taunted, a little girl lilting flirt in her tone.

            “I think you bait, designed to catch and tame.” He lifted his eyes, colored a shockingly bright blue, and raised his red eyebrow when she flustered at the brunt side force of his words. “Am I wrong?”

            “I am not bait, no,” she choked down her youth’s ire. “I am Mylene.”

            “A lady worth knowing need not introduce herself. It taints the colorings of her reputation, leads one to believe she knows the improper connections in court to lead into parties of such esteem.”

            “And a man who cannot express his thoughts succinctly puts himself alongside storytelling fools.” When he balked at her, she smiled. “I can humiliate as well. It’s a child’s sport, started back when they’ve yet to fully develop their own hearts.”

            He had the decency to look embarrassed at her words and his weight shifted onto his side, away from her. “My apologies,” he mumbled. “My bad mood made the most of me.”

            “Yes, your apologies indeed.” She studied him, the way his square mouth turned red inside in two perfect lines where his teeth had bitten into old skin and how his gaze worked in turn with heavy lidded hoods that mirrored every action of his cornea. When he looked down, she was reminded of an old dog.

            “Stop staring,” he ordered. She blinked and met his gaze again. “Go.” He motioned to the dance floor where happy couples danced side by side in line with one another.

            “It’s customary that those are danced as partners.”

            “Do not look to me. I am not your customary partner.”

            “Only my heaven ordained fiancé,” she ruminated. “Is that not good enough?”

            “It’s even worse than that, since it means you are to be my ordained wife in turn.” He lightly pushed her aside. “Excuse me,” and left her standing, alone, at the edge of the room feeling like an absolute clod.

            Why in all the world would a goddess want to continue the blood line of such an insufferable man? She choked back tears and held her chin high, forced herself not to look anywhere near the path he’d taken. So much so that she startled when a hand pressed into her arm and drew her attention off her self-deprecating thoughts to the body it belonged to.

            She had to tilt her head back to smile up into the face of this tall stranger, with his gleaming smile and shimmering green eyes, and her with her fluttering heartbeat and fiddling hands. “Oh?”

            He motioned to the floor and kept his hand out. A dance. Just like she wanted. Good. She joined the man on the floor, finally feeling light for the first time since she’d arrived. She might have felt lighter longer but then she spotted those cold blue eyes in the crowd. How they watched, and judged. She left the party earlier than she originally intended. Went home and scrubbed herself clean of him, but she felt forever watched by angels now that she’d met one, the one she was meant to marry with the fallen look in his hooded eyes.

            That night she dreamt of hair that turned to flames in her hand and eyes that leaked oceans of bright blue out until she drowned in it. She woke, gasping, fearing the day she would have to wake up alongside The Chosen and call him “husband" for she would definitely be expected to kiss him where those red bite marks had stained his lips and she was sure he tasted cold, like iron.

**Author's Note:**

> I promised myself I wouldn't start this until I finished my other projects but I couldn't get it out of my mind. I've been wanting to explore Mylene and Daddy!Wilder's dynamic for years now and so I'm going to do it, even if it does read like a faux Jane Austen novel in parts. This will update in longer chapters as plot progresses.


End file.
